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Healthcare Propaganda from Tobacco/Exxon

I received an email from the Tobacco/Exxon-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) promoting this video. The email said it is by Lee Doren (more here), not the video or the page it is on — I had to track that down. There also isn’t any info describing who made the video, or the connection with CEI. Doren heads “Bureaucrash,” one more lobbyist astroturf group (a subsidiary of CEI).

“Bureaucrash is an international network of activists, called crashers, who share the goal of increasing individual freedom and decreasing the scope of government.”

Actually, it is a subsidiary of a Tobacco/Exxon-funded lobbyist group that advocates replacing democracy with corporate rule. But who’s counting?
The video is about how government is bad, public schools are bad, the post office is bad. “Health care is essential. Food, clothing, housing are all essential but we don’t want the federal government paying for all those services for everybody.” “Taxation equals force.” “Advertising is a good thing.” “Profits are essential. Profits prevent misallocation of resources in the economy.” “CEOs make millions of people wealthy.” “If insurance companies are forced to cover preexisting conditions it wouldn’t be insurance.” It even says Medicare is bad, and even advocates that firefighting be for=profit and at the same time run by volunteers not the government!
It actually says the only reason we need lobbyists is because of the socialists who are against corporations. The core message of the video is that corporations are better at making decisions for us than democracy.
Oh, one more thing, the video is entirely against Medicare-For-All single-payer health care, which isn’t even on the table. Its very premise is a lie itself!
Anyway, take a look at what your corporate tobacco/Exxon dollars are paying for.

So why is Tobacco/Exxon paying for astroturf groups to fight against healthcare reform? Or is CEI getting checks from a new source lately?Update – The following comment was trapped in the spam filter. It is posted now, but I am also highlighting it here:

Just for the record ExxonMobil does not fund the CEI. ExxonMobil has not provided any financial support to this organization since 2005. A simple check of our website shows the companies ExxonMobil supports. The report is published annually and can be found at http://www.exxonmobil.com/corporate/community_contributions_report.aspx

I’ll look into this. CEI is still putting out climate-change denial stuff.